HOPELESSLY MISCAST `PALMETTO' NEVER PICKS UP ENOUGH STEAM.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Daily News Film Critic

``Palmetto'' is one of those movies that was doomed before the cameras ever began rolling. This slow-paced stab at steamy noir has two terribly miscast actresses and a lead actor who shouldn't have been hired at all. The film is a failed experiment in chemistry, its elements never coalescing into anything that sizzles, much less satisfies.

Woody Harrelson plays Harry Barber, a dim-bulb reporter who was wrongly jailed after exposing some high-level graft in sultry Palmetto. He's set free after two years, a changed man, bitter and aimless and angry. In other words, he's the perfect rube for someone looking to pull a scam.

Harry returns to Palmetto, a Florida town that is anything but a day at the beach. His smart, beautiful and adoring artist girlfriend (Gina Gershon) takes him back and gives his face a big old lick upon their reunion. But even that kind of puppylike affection can't keep Harry on the straight-and-narrow.

Enter Rhea Malroux (Elisabeth Shue), mysterious blond sexpot who meets Harry at a bar, sizes him up and sees a man who's ``predictably dishonest.'' Rhea is married to a wealthy tycoon. She loves the guy, but he doesn't give her or her oversexed 17-year-old stepdaughter (Chloe Sevigny in the movie's best performance) enough of an allowance to suit their expensive lifestyles.

``We're not reasonable people,'' she says.

So, Rhea offers Harry a deal. He'll get $50,000 if he pretends to kidnap the daughter and then collect the $500,000 ransom. The girl, meanwhile, will be safely hiding in Miami the whole time.

Sound too good to be true? Well, of course, it is. The ``kidnapping'' is botched from the start, and from there we are handed several mistaken identities and a few too many twists and turns on the way to a sluggish conclusion that doesn't pack much voltage.

The script really isn't the problem here, though. Shue, who has made a career of playing vulnerable nice girls, and the femme-fatale Gershon are playing against type and should have flip-flopped roles. Neither is convincing, particularly Shue, whose little-girl voice and exaggerated vampings are never remotely believable. Her sex scenes with Harrelson are flat. You'd find more steam coming from the surface of the moon.

Harrelson, too, is the wrong man for the job. He never gives Harry even the faintest glimmer of intelligence or depth, and thus, we're never much interested in the guy. This type of movie needs a flawed hero with a modicum of brainpower. (See William Hurt in ``Body Heat'' or Fred MacMurray in ``Double Indemnity.)

Here in ``Palmetto,'' Harry is stupid, so he gets what he deserves. End of story.

End of interest level, too.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Palmetto'' (R; sexuality, language, violence).

The stars: Woody Harrelson, Elisabeth Shue, Gina Gershon, Michael Rapaport, Chloe Sevigny.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Volker Schlondorff. Written by E. Max Frye. Released by Columbia.

Running time: One hour, 54 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two Stars.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Harry Barber (Woody Harrelson, left, pictured with Elisabeth Shue and Michael Rapaport) is offered the deal of his life in ``Palmetto.''